Tuesday, November 21, 2006

A house of ghosts

There was some leak from the boiler in the kitchen; rust has appeared in the metal sink. Dishes I left in haste six weeks ago waited for me patiently, growing white mould and sticky texture. In the fridge a rotting lemon and piece of ginger joined to one indistiguishable matter. No one has been living there in the time I was away.

In the flat I am surrounded by people's things. Like all long-term squats the flat has become a sanctuary for people to store their things, temporarily - but temporality is squatting, and squatting is temporality. And so I find around me the belongings of former inhabitants, ex-lovers, friends, and housemates, people I knew and people I never met; three bicycles (none of them mine); dozens of boxes and suitcases; clothes and books, framed kitsch posters salvaged from the rubbish; a large oak-wood coffee table, personally imported from Latin America; market shopping trolleys; and more, much more. I have reasons to believe that most readers of this blog left something or other in the flat. And yes, my things are there too, three shelves of books, they have their place in this constellation of clutter.